


Is That Supposed to be a Cake?

by complicationstoo



Series: Ice Prince [6]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: And you can pry that from my cold dead hands, Birthdays, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, It's all fluff there's nothing but fluff, M/M, Tony Stark is a kitchen disaster
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:00:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24334741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/complicationstoo/pseuds/complicationstoo
Summary: Tony can totally handle baking Steve a birthday cake. People follow recipes all the time without a problem, right? And if the kitchen ends up covered in food coloring and flour, it's really not his fault.Part of Ice Prince, but absolutely works as a standalone for whatever universe you'd like!
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Series: Ice Prince [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1592455
Comments: 15
Kudos: 112





	Is That Supposed to be a Cake?

**Author's Note:**

> Trying something new with dialogue prompts! This one is "You've got flour on your cheek." Let me know if you like it!

Tony doesn’t know how he’s managed to make this big of mess so fast. He’s fully aware that he’s the type of person that can burn water, but recipes exist for a reason, right? People follow them all the time without having any legitimate skills, and if he can power one of the tallest buildings in Manhattan with green energy he single-handedly invented, he can certainly handle baking a birthday cake. But he’s always been a master at proving himself wrong.

He checks the clock on the oven. Steve’s been gone for almost two hours now, at the gym with Bucky and Sam, which doesn’t leave him with much time to clean up. The cake is supposed to be a surprise, and a horribly messy kitchen is not supposed to be part of it. 

“Okay,” he mutters to himself, pushing up the sleeves of his shirt. “We can do this. We’ll get everything put away, clean the counters, sweep up all this fucking flour, and Steve won’t know anything about the disaster that happened here today. Everything’s fine. Talking to yourself is not a sign of insanity.”

The containers of flour and sugar get shoved back into the cabinets. He’s used every mixing bowl they own, mostly filling with discarded attempts at buttercream frosting, where he used too much food coloring or combined them incorrectly. Getting just the right shade of blue is harder than it looks, apparently, and how was he supposed to know that gel food coloring is that strong? Part of the counter has turned a rather interesting shade of blue from where he knocked the bottle over. Hopefully it doesn’t stay that way.

He scrapes the frosting attempts into the garbage and stacks the bowls in the sink. Turning back to the counter, he eyes the final product for a long moment. It’s lopsided and a little overdone, but the frosting hides the burnt edges well enough. Unfortunately, that’s all the frosting is good for, because it’s uneven and melting down the sides. A small puddle of it sits at the base of the cake, looking a bit like he tried to make a lake out of it. He skipped the part of the instructions that said to let it cool in what he thought was a brilliant way to save time.

“Sir, Mr. Rogers is on his way up,” JARVIS informs, and Tony groans. The mess is still terrible. He’ll have to keep Steve out of the kitchen, then. Distract him with something else, and discretely come back later to clean up the rest. 

The elevator doors open a moment later, and Tony leaves the kitchen just in time to see Steve stepping out of it. He aims for casual, leaning against the arm of the couch, then mentally curses himself for not moving quickly enough to grab a tablet or turn on the television so he could at least pretend he was doing something else.

“Hey, babe,” Tony says. His voice comes out strained, and he clears his throat. “How was the gym?”

Steve drops his gym bag from his shoulder, to the side of the elevator, and crosses the room, saying, “It was fine. Bucky kept trying to challenge me and Sam to -” Steve cuts off, squinting at his face. “You’ve got flour on your cheek. Why do you have flour on your cheek?”

Tony reaches up to brush it off, but Steve grabs his wrist on the way up. “And why is your hand blue?”

“What?” He looks at his hand, which is stained a dark blue from the food coloring. The other is even worse when he looks down at it, with dried frosting crusted to his skin. “Um, that’s from… a thing. That I was working on.”

“A thing,” Steve repeats, looking even more suspicious than before. 

Tony’s mind races for some sort of explanation, but he comes up empty. “Yes, a thing.”

Steve nods slowly, then points at a spot on Tony’s chest. “What’s that on your shirt?”

He doesn’t even bother checking what that might be. “Oh, you know my shirts always get stained in the lab. Always knocking things over, and you know how DUM-E tries to be helpful, but he just ends up making a bigger mess.” 

Steve glances over his shoulder towards the kitchen, and Tony quickly reaches for his hand and spins them around. He tugs, dragging Steve a few steps forward. “I could really use shower, actually. Clean off all this stuff. And you, you should come with me. There’s definitely a blowjob waiting for you in there.”

“Tony, what have you done to our kitchen?”

Tony freezes. “Me? Kitchen? What? No one said anything about the kitchen. Why would you make that assumption?”

Steve lifts the frosting-covered hand to inspect it, eyebrows knit together. “I think all the signs are pretty clear.”

Tony sighs, shoulders falling as he realizes he has no choice but to show him now. “Before you go in there, I would like to say that I was trying to do something nice. And technically it’s not my fault. I blame the recipe for being unclear. I mean, how was I supposed to know how to sift flour? It really should have provided instructions for that. And no one told me that there’s a big difference between baking powder and baking soda. They should have less confusing names, Steve.”

“It’s a disaster in there, isn’t it?” Steve asks, though he sounds more amused than anything. There’s a fond smile on his face, and that look in his eyes that he gets whenever Tony does something especially ridiculous. 

“It’s not great,” Tony admits.

Steve turns them back around and gets as far as the entryway before he stops. Tony looks around again and takes in the dusting of flour on the floors and counter, the smears of frosting on seemingly impossible places, the egg he dropped on the floor and swore he’d remember to clean up once the cake was in the oven. 

“Definitely not great,” Steve agrees lightly, wrapping an arm around Tony’s waist. He juts his chin out toward the blue monstrosity in the center of the counter and asks, “Is that supposed to be a cake?” 

“A birthday cake, yes.”

“My birthday’s not until next week,” Steve says, adorably confused. “Am I forgetting someone else’s?”

“No, and I know when yours is. Fourth of July is kind of hard to forget,” Tony laughs. He runs a hand through his hair, momentarily forgetting the frosting on it, and he winces when he remembers. “This was supposed to be a practice run. Work out all the kinks so your actual birthday cake wouldn’t suck so much.”

“And just how many kinks were there?”

“Don’t ask. You don’t wanna know, babe.”

Steve turns, pulling Tony against his chest. He cups Tony’s cheek and brushes away the flour there with his thumb. His voice is soft as he says, “This was really sweet of you, doll. Thank you.”

“You’re thanking me for this?” Tony asks, incredulous. “Our kitchen’s half blue now, and the cake’s probably disgusting anyway.”

Steve pulls away, walking into the kitchen and opening the silverware drawer. He grabs two forks and holds one out to Tony. “We don’t know that for sure.”

“I’m pretty sure, Steve,” he says, but he takes the fork anyway. If Steve’s brave enough to try it, he can, too. 

They lean against the counter on their elbows, and Steve goes right for the center of the cake with his fork. The inside looks unsuspecting, just a plain white cake, and he appraises it momentarily before putting it in his mouth.

Steve chews for a long moment, face neutral, and swallows hard. “Hey, baby, what flavor is this supposed to be?”

“I got creative with the extracts.”

“That explains a lot.” For some reason, he goes back for a second bite. “Is there rum in this frosting?”

“I thought it would go well with the coconut.”

Steve nods and puts his fork down on the counter, expression remaining unreadable. 

“So it’s that bad, huh?” Tony asks, digging his fork into the cake to try it himself. Steve doesn’t answer, so Tony puts the bite in his mouth. “Oh, hey, that’s not bad. It’s actually kind of good.”

“It makes no goddamn sense,” Steve grins. He shakes his head in disbelief, and picks the fork back up to go for a third bite.

Tony hums around a second mouthful, suddenly quite pleased with himself. “I’m a fucking genius.”

“I want to disagree, but I really can’t.”

“Just accept it, baby.”

Steve laughs and pulls Tony in for a kiss. His lips taste like sugar and rum, and when they part, the smile is still on Steve’s face. 

“You’re still responsible for clean up.”

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone has an idea they'd like to see in this series, feel free to comment it! If you want, you can also message me on Tumblr @ifmywishescametrue


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